More pay for some spouses working abroad - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

More pay for some spouses working abroad

Military spouses are among the U.S. citizens working for military nonappropriated fund activities overseas who soon will get extra money in their paychecks.

A Defense Department policy clarification requires the military exchanges and all morale, welfare and recreation activities to pay post allowance to more U.S. citizens working overseas — to include local hires, many of whom had not previously received the allowance.

Employees who had been entitled to the benefit will receive retroactive pay back to Dec. 1, 2001. Defense officials will give the services guidance later on procedures for the back pay, including how employees will apply for it, Pentagon spokesman Army Lt. Col. Les’ Melnyk said.

The estimated cost to pay the post allowance is $68 million, Leslye Arsht, deputy undersecretary of defense for military community and family policy, told lawmakers April 17.

Officials estimate that about 4,600 U.S. citizens living overseas and working for nonappropriated fund activities qualify for the post allowance, a monthly payment that could range in the hundreds of dollars.

But some already receive the allowance, including employees of Army MWR, the only NAF activity that pays the allowance to all its overseas U.S.-citizen employees. Marine Corps MWR was paying some of its local hires, and Navy MWR was paying post allowances to a small number of people, Melnyk said.

About 967 Army and Air Force Exchange Service employees will start receiving the allowances, spokesman Judd Anstey said. The adjustments were effective April 19 and should be in May 2 paychecks.

The Navy Exchange Service Command has about 270 affected employees. The new allowance will appear in employees’ May 8 or May 9 paychecks, depending on their location, spokeswoman Kristine Sturkie said. Information was not available at press time about how many of these are military spouses.

Melnyk said post allowance is in the works for all NAF activities, which have different pay cycles. The activities must certify by May 5 that they are paying the allowance, said the memorandum to the services signed by Michael Dominguez, principal deputy undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness.

He noted that in December, the department confirmed that some U.S. citizens hired overseas in Defense Department NAF positions were not paid post allowance, as required.

“This is an oversight that must be corrected immediately,” Dominguez said in his memo.

The retroactive pay to Dec. 1, 2001, is consistent with the six-year statute of limitations for claims against the federal government.

Under Defense Department policy, U.S. citizen employees are eligible for post allowance unless they are part-time, intermittent, or U.S. family member summer/winter hire employees.

“For NAF, this means that all U.S. citizens in full-time NAF positions in the ‘regular’ employment category are eligible for post allowance,” Dominguez wrote. “There is no distinction between employees who are recruited from the states and those who are locally hired overseas.”

Rep. Thelma Drake, R-Va., asked about the inequity for military spouses. She noted that a spouse working for a military exchange in Virginia Beach would get regular pay, but if she moved to Germany, she would get the additional post allowance.

“Can you explain to me why we would treat a spouse differently based on where the husband is stationed or the wife is stationed?” Drake asked.

“There was a request for us to review the policy as it was currently being implemented,” Arsht said.

“It was either the [inspector general] or the [Government Accountability Office] that reviewed the policy and told us that we were to treat the two different populations in the same fashion,” she said, referring to U.S. citizens hired locally overseas, compared to U.S. citizens recruited in the states to move to an overseas job.

“The allotment is similar to a cost-of-living payment. So if you’re entitled to it, you need to know you’re entitled to it and be paid it,” Arsht said.

Drake said she is concerned about the effect on MWR accounts. Arsht said officials will have to accrue the money to prepare for what the “outside possibility” cost could be.

Family advocates raised concerns about the effects, too.

“There’s only so much money in the MWR system. They will be either giving less to MWR or driving prices up,” said Jessica Perdew, deputy government relations director for the National Military Family Association.